One thing that makes airplane passengers as angry as a 9.5-hour flight delay is nearly impossible to avoid

Don't judge, but one of my favorite movie scenes of all time is
the one in "Bridesmaids" where Kristin Wiig's character, Annie,
goes
berserk on a plane.

After popping some anti-anxiety medication and washing it down
with alcohol, Annie tries sneaking into the first-class cabin and
ends up getting into a massive altercation with one of the flight
attendants.

I couldn't help but think about this scene while reading through
a recently
published paper on "air rage" incidents, when fliers become
abusive or unruly toward crew members or other passengers. I
learned about the study from Susan Fiske, a psychologist at
Princeton University, when we spoke at the
Psychological Science convention.

According to the study, there's one key factor that may influence
the likelihood of air rage: being reminded of social
inequality. That is, trudging through first class to your economy
seat.

For the study, researchers at the University of Toronto's Rotman
School of Management and Harvard Business School looked at
flights from a large international airline over several years.
They focused specifically on the thousands of disruptive
passenger incidents that had transpired.

The researchers also recorded the flight characteristics,
including the plane layout, where every disruptive incident had
occurred.

Results showed that air-rage incidents in economy class were
nearly as much as four times more common in planes with a
first-class cabin. That means that the presence of a
first-class cabin makes people just as angry as a 9.5-hour flight
delay.

What's more, air-rage incidents were more than twice as common in
planes that required passengers to board from the front, meaning
that everyone had to walk through the first-class cabin.

Interestingly, even first-class passengers were nearly as much as
12 times more likely to get angry when fliers boarded from the
front of the plane. Perhaps someone's dirty suitcase knocked over
their glass of bubbly ...

So what's to be done?

One of the study authors, Katherine DeCelles,
told New York magazine that airlines might reduce air-rage
incidents by keeping the curtain between cabins open and not
repeatedly telling passengers that they can't use the bathroom in
first class.

As for passengers, perhaps simply knowing that walking through
the fancy section might make you angry will help you control the
potential eruption.

I know I'll think of this research every time I board a plane.
Instead of channeling my inner bridesmaid, I'll try to do some
deep-breathing exercises — and keep the glaring at the fancy folk
to a minimum.